Any reason to believe anything will change in Corbin's final year?

PLAYER REVIEW: PATRICK CORBIN

Age on Opening Day 2024: 34

How acquired: Signed as free agent, December 2018

MLB service time: 11 years, 105 days

2023 salary: $24 million

Contract status: Signed for $35 million in 2024 ($10 million deferred), free agent in 2025

2023 stats: 10-15, 5.20 ERA, 32 G, 32 GS, 180 IP, 210 H, 113 R, 104 ER, 33 HR, 57 BB, 124 SO, 4 HBP, 1.483 WHIP, 83 ERA+, 5.28 FIP, 0.3 bWAR, 0.9 fWAR

Quotable: “You know, the numbers don’t indicate that he did well, but he’s got more wins than a lot of other starting pitchers in the major leagues. I could give him the ball every five days. He works really hard. He works in between his starts. The guy’s going to eat innings for you. I think this winter, he needs to come up with an identity for him, what he wants to do moving forward.” – Davey Martinez

2023 analysis: On the heels of three substandard seasons, each progressively worse than the previous, expectations for Corbin entering 2023 were as low as they could possibly get. The Nationals no longer hoped their high-priced lefty would recapture his form from long ago; they merely hoped he would be a respectable big league pitcher again who gave them a chance to win some games.

For a large chunk of the season, Corbin actually was that. Over a 23-start stretch from mid-April through mid-August, he went 8-9 with a 4.39 ERA and 1.404 WHIP. He averaged just shy of six innings per start. Thirteen of those 23 starts were quality starts. Good? No. Respectable? Yes.

Alas, Corbin’s season began and ended on far more sour notes. In his first three starts, he went 1-2 with a 7.71 ERA and 2.143 WHIP, averaging only 4 2/3 innings per outing. And over his final six starts, he went 1-4 with a 7.63 ERA and 1.533 WHIP, averaging slightly more than five innings per outing.

Put that all together, and the left-hander’s season in totality was not what it appeared it could have been. He needed a strong finish to keep his ERA under 5.00; instead, it ballooned at the end. Yes, he was ultimately better than the previous year for the first time in a long time. But he still finished with the third-highest ERA among all qualifying major league starters.

2024 outlook: At the end of the 2019 season, Corbin’s six-year, $140 million contract was widely viewed as a massive win for the Nationals. Every day since, it has looked worse and worse, leading some to count down the hours until it expires and others to wonder if the team might ever prematurely part ways with him and just eat whatever money he’s still owed.

Now that he’s finally entering the final year of that deal, those questions surely will intensify. Don’t hold your breath for a parting of ways before the 2024 season begins, though. The Nats simply don’t have enough quality rotation depth to do that yet. Corbin’s innings, while subpar, for now are still more valuable than the alternative.

If nothing else, the Nationals shouldn’t have any reason to put Corbin on the mound Opening Day for the third straight year. Josiah Gray earned that assignment with his much-improved 2023 campaign. And MacKenzie Gore and Jake Irvin arguably deserve to start the rest of the opening weekend in Cincinnati ahead of Corbin.

But he’s going to be part of the rotation to begin the season, which means he’ll need to continue to try to figure out how to be a more effective pitcher. Which means some long-awaited adaptation. At his best in 2019, Corbin was a swing-and-miss pitcher, especially when using his best pitch. His strikeout rate that season was 28.5 percent, and the whiff rate on his slider was a whopping 51.4 percent. This season, those numbers plummeted to new depths: 15.7 percent strikeout rate, 39.7 percent whiff rate on the slider.

Unless he can find some new way to make hitters swing and miss, Corbin simply has to induce more weak contact. To do that, he’ll have to start throwing his sinker down in the zone (not over the heart of the plate as he typically did this year) and actually get outs with his changeup (which opponents slugged a ridiculous .645 off of this year).

If he can’t make those long-desired improvements, and if the Nationals finally have five more reliable starting options, Corbin could finally find himself shifted to the bullpen or cut loose altogether a few months before his contract finally expires.